Consumed (Firefighters #1)(114)

As they came up to the 499’s table, all the men started to stand up. Duff even took off his baseball hat—and dropped it on his foot.

“Come on, it’s just a little makeup,” Anne said with a smile. “You guys need to get over yourselves.”

Danny helped her take off the cape and pulled out her chair. Then he leaned across the table and grabbed Duff’s lapels. “Your eyes stay at head level. All you guys. I see one dip below the throat, and I’m going to use you as a cue stick.”

Then he kissed her on the mouth and sat next to her, cracking his knuckles.

“Must you,” she drawled.

“Yup. Absolutely.”

And then it was drinks and it was wings, it was stories and it was jokes. It was the family she had worked with and the friends she had grown to love . . . and most of all, it was the big beautiful Irish man sitting beside her, his blue eyes shining.

Overcome with happiness, Anne stared at hm. And when he turned to her as if he wanted to know if she needed something, she put both her hands, the one that was flesh and blood and the one that was a tool, up to his face.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“For what?”

Anne tilted in and kissed him. “I haven’t been to Timeout in a very long time . . .”